


Saw You in a Dream

by madmorr



Category: Euphoria (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madmorr/pseuds/madmorr
Summary: Twenty-one year old Jules writes a letter that will never be read...
Relationships: Rue Bennett/Jules Vaughn
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53





	Saw You in a Dream

Rue-

Don’t laugh. This wasn’t my idea, I swear. Seriously, the person I pay $200 an hour to talk to told me to do this so you can’t laugh at me. 

I don’t want to do this. It feels stupid as fuck and phoney and dramatic. And also hopeless. This is only going to make me sad. Because if I write a letter, some part of me is going to expect you to write back.

But you won’t. Bitch. 

Can I still call you that? It felt awkward writing that just now, like maybe I should address you more formally now. Fuck, that’s depressing. I think it’s because we haven’t laughed together in so long that it feels like you’re an old friend I haven’t seen in awhile that I need to reconnect with and warm back up to before we can fall back into our usual humor again. I fucking hate this feeling. 

Sometimes I feel so lucky that I met you, that I got to know you, even for just a short time. But other days I feel angry that I didn’t get more time with you. But how much more time would have been enough? 

I never thought much about Heaven until you passed. 

Because Heaven is a place that people make up because they can’t stand the idea that they won’t always exist. It’s a place I’ve been told I’ll never go to because I’m trans. But there are moments when I’m so desperate to believe it exists, just so I can imagine that this wasn’t all you got. I want more for you.

I decided recently to try to stop being so concerned with what’s real and what’s not real because I guess I realized that something doesn’t have to be real to bring me joy or comfort or whatever. Like sure, Heaven might not actually be real but neither are you anymore but I still love you so much. Did that sound harsh? Maybe. You _were_ real. But not anymore. Not physically anyway. My little human brain can’t really comprehend that.

Because some days it’s like you’re everywhere and sometimes that’s nice but other times it hurts like hell. The other day I was in a cab and I saw some guy totally wipe out on his bike. I burst out laughing and the driver looked at me like I was an asshole but I wasn’t laughing at the guy, I was remembering you telling me about your experiences with drinking and biking. Sometimes I let myself believe it’s you orchestrating occurrences like that, just for me, like you’re saying, “don’t forget me”. 

Your mom sent me one of her Whitney Houston vinyl records for my birthday this year. Gia told me you and her used to dance to her music in the living room before bed when you were little. She said your favorite was “How Will I Know” and that sometimes the two of you would make up little routines to perform for your parents. It feels like I live for those things now. The little facts about you that I never knew. It’s really comforting to be reminded that you had a whole entire life before we met. 

Because sometimes I get scared that I took something from you. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way people dismiss the love of teenagers. The way they condescendingly call it hormone-fueled infatuation or young love. Like it’s not real. Maybe that’s what we had, I don’t know. But I can’t let myself believe it wasn’t real. Because that’s all you got. 

Sometimes, I wonder if you might still be alive if we never met. Not like I’m blaming myself for your death, but I get thinking about the butterfly effect and what tiny little thing might’ve led to your death. Maybe me not being in your life would have changed your course enough to save you. Or maybe if we met a day later than we did. Or if we met at school rather than at that party. 

When I run out of what ifs, my mind will find solace in the idea of the butterfly. Most kinds of butterflies only live a few weeks, but they live such beautiful lives. I always feel better when I see a butterfly out flitting around. I never thought I’d be that person who looks for signs and stuff, but I guess I never needed to before. It helps a little bit. I try to tell myself that those little moments are enough to sustain me but then another voice in my head asks, _is it?_

And then I answer back, _it has to be, because that’s all I have._

But then other times it’s the littlest things that makes me crumble. Like something as simple as the fact that we’re not the same age anymore. I get sad because I’m getting older and I guess you’re not. But someone told me once that a part of you stays frozen at the age you were when you lost someone important. So maybe part of me will stay with you at 17.

I think that’s true, because some days you seem so close, like we just talked yesterday. But other days you feel so far and I’ll wonder if I ever really knew you. What if I just thought I did? Or what if you never really existed, I just made you up in my head. When that happens, I usually have to call Gia or your mom. As soon as I hear their voices, I know for sure you were real. 

Sometimes I realize I’ve gone many hours without thinking of you at all, and then I feel guilty because it kind of feels good just to breathe for a sec. Because most days I think about you often. Not like in an obsessive way, usually it’s pretty unconscious, you’re just kind of... _there_. You’re in the song that comes up on my playlist that you once told me you liked. You’re in the random stranger that smiled at me politely with a slightly crooked front tooth like you had. You’re in the absent-minded way I catch myself running the tip of my tongue along the tattooed letters of our combined names on the inside of my bottom lip.

Remember when we thought that tattoo was forever? We laughed at the idea that someday we’d be 80 years old and that tattoo would still be there. That tattoo was supposed to bind us together so that we’d always remember one another, even if we ended up on opposite sides of the planet. But yours doesn’t exist anymore because your body doesn’t exist anymore.

Well, except for your lungs. Your mom sent me a copy of a letter she got awhile ago from the donor recipient. I don’t know shit about lung transplants so the first thing I wondered was if that person’s laugh might sound like your laugh now, even just a little. Like that makes sense, right? But Google said no. Apparently the vocal cords control the sound of people’s laughs and you can’t transplant those. That’s okay though, it would probably suck to hear your laugh coming out of a different person. 

Yeah that’d be creepy as hell now that I think about it. 

Sometimes I start to feel like I’m forgetting the way your voice sounded. I can’t hear it perfectly in my head anymore, so I have to listen to one of the voicemails you left me. 

I miss you so much.

There are so many things I’ll never get to ask you. I make lists of questions in my head when I can’t sleep at night. Here’s a few:

1) Remember when you said we should get Nate’s dad to pay me off so we could do a bunch of cool stuff together? What cool stuff did you have in mind? 

2) Remember that time I played you that one song I loved and I asked if you liked it and you said yes? Did you actually like it or did you not want to hurt my feelings?

3) Remember when I told you about how I used to pray when I was little that I’d wake up in the morning and be 25 years old and living with my best friend? Remember how you started crying and hyperventilating? When I asked what was wrong, you told me you didn’t know. Was that true? 

4) Did you ever do shit like this when your dad passed? Did you make lists of questions for him?

5) Were you actually 3 months clean when you overdosed or had you relapsed before then? 

6) Why couldn’t you stop yourself from snorting that line? Why couldn’t you just decide to stop?

Sorry about that last one. I know you couldn’t stop. I know that. The same way your dad couldn’t decide to not have cancer. But I still catch myself asking that.

Once in awhile, I just have to let myself be angry and I’m sorry that sometimes it’s directed at you. I’m starting to realize that moving through the stages of grief isn’t a linear process, it’s fluid. I progress and regress. I might think I’ve reached acceptance and the next morning, I wake up and it’s suddenly completely and utterly unacceptable all over again. I guess sometimes it feels better to be angry at you than feel sad or empty. I start to crave it, and eventually I give in. Kind of like a relapse maybe. 

This is the part I was dreading even before I started writing. I don’t know how to end this. I can’t really say “I’ll see you later” or “talk soon”, but you haven’t come to visit in my dreams in awhile, so don’t be a stranger.

I love, love, love you. And not to get all "Whitney Houston" about it, but I always will. 

-Jules

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**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually think Rue died at the end of season one. Our girlie is safe in Sam Levinson's hands. I was just listening to this [song](https://youtu.be/5L3I_U-3ZaU) and thinking about what it would be like for Jules if Rue had overdosed and passed away.
> 
> The video edit I made is supposed to be Jules in the future, living her dream in NYC working in fashion and all she has left of Rue are dreams and memories.


End file.
